From SBS Food
For something that is more or less an underwater snail, the humble abalone has done pretty well for itself. Twenty years ago a Chinese grocer would pay a few dollars for a barrow load of the ugly blighters known as ‘Muttonfish’ picked out of Port Phillip Bay.
Nowadays this mollusk, or to be more precise Haliotidae, is prized by chefs to the extent that many regions including South Africa, the Middle East and California have overfished and decimated their stocks. Fortunately, abalone fishing is protected by a licensing system in Australia and is lucrative enough to have become a product that is farmed by some 22 local enterprises (as well as attracted black marketers). There are up to 130 species spread across the world, each region having its own unique variety.
In Australian waters it is the pale greenlip and blacklip, both prized over its darker coloured New Zealand cousin. While flavour varies depending on the season and diet, the real attraction of abalone is its pale colour and texture and the prestige it brings to the banquet table. Melbourne-based chef James Tan says: “With Asian, especially the Chinese, they use a lot of abalone for health purposes and for textural purposes.”
The common misconception of abalone as a tough textured seafood is not necessarily justified in most cases. This can be true if not prepared properly or, like many delicate seafoods, if overcooked. There are only two ways to cook it, sliced thinly and fleetingly tossed in a hot wok or in a pressure cooker to prevent the bao yu, as abalone is known in parts of China, becoming as tough as mutton. “We are very lucky here in Australia that we have an abundance of abalone,” says Tan. “The quality of our abalone is second to none in the world. As this country matures we are becoming the food bowl of Asia. “Our waters are clean for a start. I wouldn’t eat any Asian seafood at all when I’m traveling in Asia unless it is a known operator because their waterways are not clean. A lot of my counterparts in Asia are looking towards Australia for ideas and more exotic foods.”
The most prestigious, and most expensive, abalone are the large wild ones, which populate the tanks of any Chinatown. Ravi Narain, of abalone processors Golden Dragon Marine Products, says that the ideal at a banquet for is for every person to be served one. And as farmed abalone are smaller than the ocean caught they are becoming a popular economical and face saving alternative, which accounts for the success of local farms. “Because of the esteem value associated with abalone you tend to give everybody a whole one,” says Narain. “If you give your respected friend a cut abalone, it is thought not to be so good. It is all steeped in tradition and protocol.” A typical banquet table will fit about 15 people. Even serving tinned abalone can prove expensive; to show esteem for all the guests it takes up to eight cans, each containing one or two pieces, at $80 to $100 each. “If you have smaller abalone, each guest gets a whole abalone, Narain says. “Fifteen abalones of a farmed size may only be a kilo or a kilo and a half in weight in weight. The cost is quite considerably lower than wild.”
But Golden Dragon doesn’t sell abalone locally anymore due to price pressures, which don’t exist in the east, on a product that costs over $150 a kilo. “The problem we have with the local market is that we are competing with the black market, “ says Narain. “It’s a lot better now than five or ten years ago but a restaurant can buy black market abalone at $45 a kilo.” Strict policing and the availability of the farmed product is helping put the black marketers out of business.
The farmed business also has had its setbacks with both farmed and coastal abalone depleted by a herpes type virus. The debate still rages over where the virus came from. Scientists say it was always in the sea, which provides the water to flush the land-based concrete tanks that most farmers use. Fishermen say that it is the intensity of the farming techniques, a large farm may hold 3 million or so abalone in various states of maturity across several hundred tanks, that provided the ideal conditions for the virus to multiply and spread to Victorian coastal waters. Fortunately, bio security of the water flushed through the tanks has improved. And current output is back up to about 500 tonnes of abalone each year, expected to hit 1,000 tonnes eventually. Sure it is nowhere near the 7,000 tonnes produced each year in South Korea. Australian abalone, however, will always be prized because of our clean seas and quality produce.